Arsenal were without seven members of their first-team squad for the Premier League opener against Liverpool on 14 August, succumbing to a 4-3 home defeat after Jürgen Klopp’ s side struck three times in 14 minutes in a scintillating start to the second-half.
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Subsequent goals from Adam Lallana, Sadio Mane and another from Coutinho put Liverpool 4-1 ahead, and they managed to hang on for the three points after Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Calum Chambers narrowed the deficit.
“We pushed players today like Ramsey”, he said.
“Yes we need some players back and of course I’ve said many times before we are working very hard still to get one or two more players in”, he told Sky Sports. At the back you feel that we lack a little bit of maturity but you know that before you go into the game. “You have to accept sometimes that you can not control absolutely everything even if you try to be as intelligent as possible”.
Despite winning the game it was not all praise for the Reds faithful especially the manner in which they nearly blew a 4-1 lead.
However, some Philippe Coutinho and Sadio Mane magic ensured the Reds brushed aside their Emirates hoodoo in Klopp’s first visit to the stadium as manager of the Merseysiders.
While Klopp applauded the quality of his team’s attacking football, he warned that they will not achieve anything this season if they do not learn to defend more cohesively.
Jurgen Klopp’s side came from 1-0 down to lead 4-1 before the north London side rallied in the final 30 minutes of the game. “If you celebrate too early, life always gives you a knock”.
“We’re not in Europe this year so we’ve got a lot of weeks where it’s one game a week. We made our mistakes together and we scored wonderful goals”, he said. But we have a benchmark now and we can assess it and look at things we need to improve on.
Given that the Anfield outfit had scored 41 Premier League goals in 2016 prior to the weekend – more than any other club – that should not have come as a surprise, though.
“At 4-1 we maybe got a bit complacent, a bit over the top”, the England worldwide told Liverpool’s official website.
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This post was syndicated from Vanguard News.
